Serie A is currently stocked with highly valuable talent. Four players – Kvica Kvaratsheriya, Nicolò Barella, Rafael Leon and Victor Osimhen – are currently worth over £65 million, according to Transfermarkt (TM). However, the most valuable player in the Italian top flight is Inter Milan’s guardian striker Lautaro Martinez, the winner of the Serie A Golden Boot award for 2023/24. With an impressive record of 30 goals in 33 Serie A appearances, Martinez is undoubtedly one of the best players Serie A has to offer at the moment. The Argentine forward is currently worth £92.6 million, according to TM.
Martinez is currently 26 years old and in the prime of his career, and while many clubs would love to have him in their squad, most can only dream of it happening. However, clubs will undoubtedly be searching for the next Serie A goal machine, the next Lautaro Martinez. In this data analysis, we use TFA’s comparison tool xGold to identify potential future Italian stars who share similarities with the Inter star.
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As we want to find future stars for this analysis, we restrict the search to centre-backs aged 23 or under who have played for Serie A, B or C clubs in the 2023/24 season. We do not include players on loan from clubs outside these three leagues.
As Martinez is known to occasionally play as an attacking midfielder/second striker, with the aim of finding players with positional versatility, we will also highlight players in our search who play as strikers as well as wingers/attacking midfielders, with no limit on market value.
The search will generate a list of 80 players who meet the criteria: the top 80 Italian U23 strikers who are similar to Lautaro Martinez in terms of playing style. The table below shows the 80 players, highlighting their similarity rating and overall quality rating according to xGold’s algorithm. Note that the search highlights players who were with the Italian club at the start of the 23/24 season. For example, Rasmus Hojlund appears in the search despite his transfer to Manchester United in August 2023. Of course, the top players we recommend and analyze further are current Serie A/B/C players.
If you’re an Italian soccer fan, many of the names in the chart above will be familiar to you – a search will bring up a large number of players from the second and third divisions of Italian soccer, with a range of players and levels to choose from.
We have chosen seven players for our analysis, but of course there are other players in the above data who could thrive as a centre-forward in top-flight football. Players with high ratings and similarities, such as Antonio Cioffi of Napoli and Jacopo Pellegrini of Sassuolo, are promising prospects who we hope will start scoring goals soon.
Steven Spendy – Cesena (Similarity 87%, TFA rating 80)
21-year-old Albania U21 international Steven Shpendi got his first taste of Serie A football last season while on loan at Empoli. In fact, his game time was limited, spread across 12 league games. He was able to further prove his mettle in the 22/23 season, appearing in 29 Serie C games for his club Cesena and averaging 15 goals per game. The season before that, he scored an astounding 30 goals in 23 appearances for Primavera 2. While some might argue that his sudden promotion to the Italian top flight was too sudden, let’s take a closer look at his percentiles in the 22/23 season.
As we can see, considering the percentiles above, he showed a similar profile to Lautaro Martinez. However, there are significant differences in aerial success and positional indicators (e.g. interceptions). In terms of chance creation and build-up play statistics (progressive passes, dangerous passes), he showed similar percentiles to Martinez. The same can be said for goal contributions per 90 minutes, shots, dribbles and touches in the box. Although it is important to remember the difference in the quality of the competition the players were playing in (a point to keep in mind throughout this data analysis), Spendy clearly showed some similarities to Martinez.
Lorenzo Di Stefano – Modena (Similarity 91%, TFA rating 65)
Last names carry a lot of meaning in the world of football, but this is especially true for Di Stefano. Lorenzo Di Stefano was the top player in our search in terms of similarities. Looking at the data, the key similarities are in forward passing and dribbling. Di Stefano struggled in front of goal last season, only managing 3 goals/assists in 884 minutes. This puts him in a relatively similar percentile to Lautaro Martinez, but again, league differences must be taken into account.
He is currently playing for Modena in Serie B after joining in the mid-season transfer window. He spent the first half of the season at Lecco, also in Serie B, before being a young player at Sampdoria. The 21/22 season was a good one for Di Stefano, scoring eight goals in 1,346 minutes in the league while on loan at Gubbio in Serie C. He also had an impressive goal-scoring streak for Sampdoria Primavera.
Sebastiano Esposito – Inter Milan (Similarities 87%, TFA Rating 63)
Not only do Inter Milan have Lautaro Martinez, but according to xGold, the club has a ready replacement. Sebastiano Esposito had the second-highest similarity score of all searches at 87%. While the 22-year-old has yet to reach Martinez’s goal tally, he shows promise and statistical similarities, ranking in similar percentiles for dangerous passing, dribbling, positioning and shots per 90 minutes (22/23 season).
The Italian U21 international spent last season on loan at Serie B side Sampdoria, scoring six goals in 1,672 minutes. He has had several loan spells prior to this, from Serie B clubs SPAL and Venezia to Belgian club Anderlecht and Swiss club Basel. This season will be important for Esposito, who will gain some important Serie A experience on loan at Empoli. While he is unlikely to take Lautaro Martinez’s place at Inter, Esposito has the chance to either work his way up the pecking order at the club or sell himself to earn a move to another top team.
Lorenzo Colombo – AC Milan (84% similarity, TFA rating 44)
Inter’s tough rivals AC Milan also seem to have a rising young striker in Lautaro Martinez’s vein, known as Lorenzo Colombo. The 22-year-old has spent the past two seasons on loan at Serie A clubs Monza (23/24) and Lecce (22/23), but struggled to impress in terms of goalscoring, scoring just five goals in 1,462 minutes at Monza and six in 1,643 minutes at Lecce. That said, his playing style does seem to display some Martinez-esque traits, as his similarity rating is 84% according to xGold.
As you can see, he doesn’t rank high on the percentile charts for shots per 90 minutes last season, which likely contributed to his struggles in front of goal. Like Martinez, he enjoys dribbling with the ball while showing good positional traits when he doesn’t have it. Milan may view Colombo as a player who can contribute off the bench this season, or at best as a rotation option. If not, another loan move could be considered. Either way, he’ll be desperate to improve his goal rate.
Zito Lubumbo – Cagliari (similarity 81%, TFA rating 69)
Angolan forward Zito Lubumbo has the highest overall rating in the search with a TFA rating of 69, and although his similarity score of 81% is the lowest of our final selections, he does share some similarities with Lautaro Martinez, specifically his defensive movement as well as his penchant for forward passing.
Luvambo began his career at 1⁰ de Agosto in the Angolan top flight before catching the eye of Cagliari scouts and signing with the club in 2020 at the age of 18. After impressing for the club’s youth teams, he played a key role in the team that was promoted in the 22/23 season, scoring six goals in 2,149 minutes while playing in a variety of positions. He was a major presence for Cagliari in Serie A last season, scoring 10 goals in 2,130 minutes. Luvambo has steadily improved during his time in Italy and is set to play a bigger role and score more goals for Cagliari in the 24/25 season.
Christian Spendy – Cesena (Similarities 77%, TFA Rating 69)
The second forward we’ll look at in this analysis is a forward called Spendy. Cristian is the younger brother of the aforementioned Steven and currently plays for Cesena. Spendy was a vital part of the club’s promotion last season, scoring 21 goals and providing 6 assists in 33 Serie C appearances. His prolific nature is just one of the ways he is similar to Lautaro Martinez; others include his presence in the box, chance creation and defensive contributions. The only two major differences between the two are their aerial ability and positional traits.
Promotion to Serie B will be a big test for the 21-year-old but if he can adapt quickly and carry his form from the 23/24 season into the 24/25 season, it could be a stepping stone to life as a Serie A footballer.
Conclusion
Lautaro Martinez has been one of Serie A’s most prolific goalscorers over the last few years and is also its most valuable player right now – if he’s not a model for up-and-coming strikers in Italian football, then what is?
An initial search of 80 players from Serie A, B and C resulted in the 6 best, but as mentioned earlier, there were others that could have been selected for further analysis. I mentioned Cioffi and Pellegrini, but there are others such as Eddie Salcedo and 19-year-old Jonathan Pitu, for example. Nicolò Cambiaghi ranked highly in the similarity rating. Nevertheless, due to his low TFA rating and his main position as a left winger, I did not analyze him further.
Our six picks were chosen primarily based on similarity/TFA rating, with G/A contribution also being a factor, and we believe they all have the potential to be key players in the 24/25 season, especially Cristian Shpendi and Zito Luvumbo.
